Maintaining an understanding of current inventory is an important aspect of retail sales operations. Accordingly, various inventory-taking systems and processes have been employed over the years to assist retail store personnel in determining accurate estimates of current inventory. These systems and processes have included manual counting processes and handheld scanner based systems (e.g. barcode scanner systems and, more recently, systems that employ RFID technology), as well as vision-analysis systems. Manual counting processes are time consuming and prone to human error. When compared with manual counting processes and handheld scanner based systems, vision recognition systems have produced significant gains in efficiency and accuracy.
In vision-based inventory analysis system, cameras are generally placed throughout the premises, and periodic images are taken of store shelves. In a battery powered shelf observing system, the camera wakes up every so often to take a picture. The picture is transmitted to an inventory monitoring system which will use the photo to determine planogram compliance and/or approximate fullness of the shelf.
A problem exists in vision systems in that at the particular instant the picture is taken, there is a good chance that parts of the shelf will be blocked by shoppers and/or carts. Thus, many of the pictures will have critical information missing which may prevent the photos from fulfilling their intended purpose, prompting additional pictures to be taken to deal with the uncertainty around the blocked areas. Sending additional pictures shortens the battery life of the cameras. Additionally, when the inventory monitoring system is located off of the premises, the transmission of image data may take place over a cellular wireless networks. In such systems, bandwidth is a significant cost of operating the system. Reducing the number of images transmitted would reduce the cost of operating the system. Reducing that cost would increase the competitiveness and/or margin of any vision-based inventory analysis system. Therefore a need exists for transmission of images for inventory monitoring that reduces operating costs and increases battery life of the cameras used in acquiring images.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required.